Miss America 2015

[unarose]

Preliminary Competitions Scoring

The Miss America Preliminary Competitions and their weighted score values are:

Lifestyle and Fitness in Swimsuit - 15%
Evening Wear - 20%
Talent - 35%
Private Interview - 25%
On-Stage Question – 5%

Finals Competition Scoring

The scoring for the Miss America Finals Competition is weighted accordingly:

Composite Score - 30% (Top 16)
Lifestyle and Fitness in Swimsuit - 20% (Top 16)
Evening Wear - 20% (Top 10)
Talent - 30% (Top 8)
On-Stage Question (Top 8)
Final Ballot – Each judge ranks the Top 5 contestants in the order he/she believes they should each finish. The outcome of the pageant is based solely on the point totals resulting from the final ballot.

Source.

Theoretically, though it counts the largest percent of all parts, someone could have a higher score if they did outstanding on every part but talent than someone who didn't do as well on the other parts but had a better talent performance.

[GammaGirl1908]

I am gobsmacked that Cup Girl won. Really? She must have KILLED IT in prelims.

[misscherrypie]

Followed Prelims all week. Many were very impressed with Ohio and predicted her, Mississippi or Alabama for the win. I do remember a few saying "New York is going to have one heck of an interview....watch for her!" but the consensus was that because her talent was not at the caliber of others, then not to expect her to make Top 15.

FWIW, I think that Kira won the entire competition in Interview.

[nyapbp]

Interesting.

[thetalady]

Miss NY/ America is getting slammed for her "talent" in the media. I am shocked that this was even allowed in the talent competition. Why bother?

Video May not be up for long....

[sugar and spice]

I think people are being unnecessarily tough on New York. She has a lovely voice; she just chose a song that didn't show it off to the best of its abilities. But in my book, that's a much smarter move than pushing way beyond your limitations a la Tennessee.

She wasn't the best talent, obviously, but she was far from the worst. The dancers were all pretty atrocious this year--the barefoot ballet/lyrical stuff is basically the equivalent of admitting you have no real talent, and the girl on pointe was awful even by Miss America's dance standards. And don't get me started on Tennessee. I'd put New York's talent about smack in the middle.

The real complaints seems to stem from the fact that she did a low-brow routine relatively well instead of the usual doing a high-brow routine poorly, which . . . seems like a weird complaint in an event where Miss Ohio's spectacular but low-brow talent was clearly the best of the night.

[LAblondeGPhi]

Originally Posted by thetalady

Miss NY/ America is getting slammed for her "talent" in the media. I am shocked that this was even allowed in the talent competition. Why bother?

Video May not be up for long....

If I weren't living overseas, I totally would have been watching all of this alongside you all last night. But, I missed all the fun.

Thetalady - THANK YOU for posting that video. Oh My God. Why on earth didn't she just sing??

I love me the Miss America organization, and I competed in it for a number of years, but the women who do well are those who are polished in all areas, so you wind up with a lot of meh talents in the end every single year. It's kind of frustrating because that's the obvious differentiation between Miss America and Miss USA, and that portion always looks kind of silly.



On a more positive note, I didn't see anything here about this announcement that I think is about 30 years overdue:

DICK CLARK PRODUCTIONS AND
THE MISS AMERICA ORGANIZATION
JOIN FORCES ON THE WORLD-RENOWNED MISS AMERICA COMPETITION IN 2015

Supposedly this will mean a lot more media exposure for Miss America at dcp-produced events like the "American Music Awards," "Golden Globe Awards," "Academy of Country Music Awards," "Billboard Music Awards," and "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest."

[Katmandu]

I thought NYs voice was better than a couple of the finalists. Certainly better than the Via Dolorosa singer.

[FSUZeta]

thetalady, thanks so much for the link. Greatly underwhelmed with her talent. The cup thingy can be really cool, such as here:

http://www.wimp.com/irishcups/

but "solo" (see what I did there?) it's meh.

[PersistentDST]

Originally Posted by FSUZeta

thetalady, thanks so much for the link. Greatly underwhelmed with her talent. The cup thingy can be really cool, such as here:

http://www.wimp.com/irishcups/

but "solo" (see what I did there?) it's meh.

I agree. It looks much cooler when there is a group of people participating in something like that. Part of me wonders if she added the cup because she wasn't as strong in the vocal department. Perhaps she should have picked another song to highlight her voice.

One thing I will say is that I was thrilled to hear all 5 young ladies receive equally difficult questions during that round. I appreciate that they took the feedback into account this year. Maybe they can be slightly more transparent about percentages/preliminary interviews? To those who participated or follow pageants closely we have an understanding of those things, but to the novice watcher, they think a young lady won with a red solo cup routine. I think it would help highlight those who may be better overall performers. They used to post the scores on the screen at one point didn't they?

[honeychile]

For those who didn't see Pitch Perfect, the "Cup Song" is from that. Here's a very short clip from it: Pitch Perfection Audition.

Here's the song in its whole: When I'm Gone.


I honestly didn't hate New York's talent, because some of the more different talent performances seem to catch the judges' interest over the years, but I wasn't exactly in love with any of them.

I didn't find any of the questions answered with profundity, either, so those Prelims must have really rocked!

[Scully]

I didn't see it mentioned in a previous post, but Miss New York is an Alpha Phi from Hofstra: http://missny.org/presskit/

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by Scully

I didn't see it mentioned in a previous post, but Miss New York is an Alpha Phi from Hofstra: http://missny.org/presskit/

So happy to hear this!

[nyapbp]

Originally Posted by Scully

I didn't see it mentioned in a previous post, but Miss New York is an Alpha Phi from Hofstra: http://missny.org/presskit/

Although she lists it in her bio, Alpha Phi HQ confirms she is no longer a current member.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by nyapbp

Although she lists it in her bio, Alpha Phi HQ confirms she is no longer a current member.

The plot thickens!